


Desert Flower

by NotQuiteHumanAnymore



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 02:27:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10504518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHumanAnymore/pseuds/NotQuiteHumanAnymore
Summary: Luke has Hanahaki. He accepts this as gospel. He does not plan to find Han lying in a pool of his own blood, with a pile of Devil's Claw beneath him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I must preface that when I write Hanahaki aus, I have two strains of the disease: type one, where you’re cured when the other person reciprocates your feelings, and type two, where you have to actually confess your feelings to each other. Guess which one makes for better angst?

It’s not as though Luke has never seen flowers before. It’s not even as though he’s never heard of Hanahaki before.

He has all of that information. The problem is that he has it all separately. And none of these bits of information really converged properly to help the sight before him make sense.

“H-Han?” he asks, somehow still being able to hear his own voice over the sound of Chewie’s worried cries. Chewie is busy flying, and Luke...

Luke can’t stop staring.

There are flowers scattered across the floor, long stemmed and speckled with hooked barbs. Luke is intimately familiar with the flowers on the ground around Han. "Devil’s claw" is what the Tattooine natives call the barbed, purple flowers. If harvested and used properly, it can help with differing levels of pain, and is cheaper than the painkillers sold in the far and few between markets on the desert planet. They were beautiful, as far as the flowers themselves went, but painful to touch, and easy to get hooked on if one isn’t traveling through the desert carefully. 

Devil’s Claw didn’t belong in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon.  And neither did Han’s prone form belong in the midst of the flowers, immobile and unconscious. Luke couldn’t focus his gaze enough to even look for chest movement as he kicked the barbed flowers aside, falling to his knees next to Han, and turned him over onto his back.

There was a fair amount of blood trickling from between Han’s lips, and _of course_  there would be. The barbs on a single strand of Devil’s Claw would be rough enough to cut through flesh if they were being coughed up, and Luke was kneeling among dozens of them. 

Luke wiped the blood from Han’s lips as he tried to jostle the smuggler awake. He heard a faint gasp from the cockpit entrance and knew that Leia had _finally_  followed him up, setting aside her false disdain for Han in the face of Luke’s obvious worry.

Luke didn’t pay her more than a sparing glance, and she moved to take the controls beside Chewie, who had yet to stop growling in an attempt to annoy Han awake. 

Belatedly, Luke realized that he needed to look for a pulse, he needed to make sure that Han was still alive, as opposed to making sure that Han was given the proper Corsican burial rites. 

The thought of burying Han sent a wave of nausea so potent that luke was certain he was about to lose control of his own flowers. His flowers were not half so grotesque as the Devil’s Claw still lying on the floor of the cockpit. They wouldn’t be likely to cause internal bleeding or leave any scars. And right now, Luke would do anything to have the ability to trade flowers with Han. 

He found Han’s pulse, weak but steady beneath his fingertips, and thought he could cry beneath the weight of his relief. 

Han lived to annoy Leia another day.

Luke inhaled sharply. _Of course_.

His eyes flicked to where his sister was pointedly refusing to pay them nay mind, but he could see the worry in the stiff lines of her shoulders. Leia didn’t have Hanahaki, Luke realized glumly. That meant that either Han had type one, and she had yet to fall for him, or Han had type two, and their stubbornness would mean neither of them ever found a cure. 

Luke didn’t much care for the thought, and he pushed away thoughts of the delicate white petals hidden beneath the mattress of his bunk. He knew who his flowers belonged to, and now he knew that Han was never going to love him back. The thought stung in the back of his throat, in the space behind his eyes, but he refused to let himself cry over Han. 

Especially considering that Han had gotten a much worse deal.

Gingerly, he lifted Han from the floor, murmuring a quick “be right back” to the others as he maneuvered Han’s still-prone form down to the medical facilities. They were really only considered that because of the fact that they contained a roll of gauze (never used) and an X-ray scanner. Luke carefully positioned Han down onto the bunk and tried to find something that would help with Han’s pain, or help with the internal bleeding he was doubtless facing. He thought about the Devil’s Claw upstairs, about the medicinal properties that they held, but he wanted those nowhere near Han, wanted no part of the cruel irony that they’d help in time. He returned to Han’s side far too often to actually find anything, coughing up some petals, some full flowers whose name he didn’t care to identify. He shoved them unceremoniously into his pocket and glanced back at Han again. 

He couldn’t shake the image of Han in the midst of the Devil’s Claw. He was sure he wouldn’t sleep tonight because of it. Luke sunk onto the bed again with a sigh, resigning himself to, once again, being totally useless as far as helping Han went.

Luke brushed Han’s hair from his eyes, running his fingers through the soft strands of it, hoping beyond hope that Han would wake up, and then beginning to silently pray to gods long dead that he could make Leia fall in love with his friend.

“Kid?” Han’s low, rasping voice filtered through his rioting thoughts  and Luke snatched his hand away. Han sat up slowly, trying to glean some sort of information from Luke, but Luke couldn’t see what.

“Your-” Luke’s voice broke, but he couldn’t break eye contact. “Your flowers are called Devil’s Claw.” Luke offered. “They’re pretty common on Tattooine.” Luke pulled in a gasping breath and swallowed a petal or two so that he could continue talking. It didn’t much matter if they came up now or later, Han’s flowers for Leia meant that he’d still cough the flower up eventually. “I promise, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make her fall in love with you, Han-” Han laughed a little, sounding disbelieving. “No,” he insisted, “I am. She’s going to fall in love with you, and you’re going to live happily ever after, and-”

And-

And Han’s lips were soft and gentle against his own. And Luke was confused, so very confused, but that didn’t stop him from melting into the kiss.

“I’m not in love with Leia,” Han said quietly, his lips brushing Luke’s as he spoke. He’d pulled back the barest amount necessary to say the words, but the space was still a chasm in relation to how close they’d been a moment before. As if realizing this himself, Han pressed his lips back to Luke’s, before pulling away and running his lips along Luke’s jawline. Luke felt a breath catch in his throat. His hands were shaking, his heart was racing, and Han showed no sign of stopping anything that he was doing, now that it was clear Luke wasn’t going to stop him. Luke couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. “I’m in love with you.”

Luke squeaked, his heart thundering in his ears, and this was all too much, just _too much_ , but Han was looking at him, slightly worried, with a little line between his eyebrows that Luke wanted to kiss away.

So he did. 

Luke kissed Han between his eyebrows, on each temple, along his cheekbones, the tip of Han’s nose, everything that Luke could reach. Han grabbed his hands, twining their fingers together, and looked at Luke expectantly. 

Luke’s eyes went comically wide, and he felt a blush rise on his face. 

“I love you, too.” He said quickly, feeling slightly silly for forgetting such an important detail. “I love you, too.” He repeated, the silly feeling quickly replaced by giddiness.  He could actually _feel_ it, the moment that the words left his mouth in a rush. The painful tingle that had been centered around his sternum eased and then faded completely. Han surged forward, pulling Luke down into another kiss that promised a lifetime more. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, technically I didn't promise angst. Not even in the tags.
> 
> Come prompt me, or visit to yell about star boys on tumblr @scarletwix!!


End file.
